Re: General advice beyond Org

[Eric Abrahamsen]

edgar@openmail.cc writes:

>> Message: 3
>> Date: Thu, 17 May 2018 16:44:39 -1000
>> From: Bob Newell <bobnewell@bobnewell.net>
>> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
>> Subject: Re: [O] General advice beyond Org
>>      
>
>> If your evaluation (and you need to do a careful evaluation of the
>> merits and demerits of both your approach and her approach) is that
>> it's better to go with what your adviser asks, then you should do so.
>> No, I wouldn't like it either. But I don't think (unlike RMS, perhaps)
>> that there are show-stopping moral or ethical issues here.
>>
>> If your evaluation truly tells you that your way is best, then you
>> need to come up with a plan of action, with alternatives. I'd suggest
>> that a good enough evaluation could possibly sway your adviser.
>>
>> Best of luck to you.
>>
>
> Thank you, Bob (I'm sorry for not knowing any Hawaiian other than
> aloha). I truly believe that my way is best (she likes track changes,
> but I am almost sure that has never tried Git, subversion, mercurial
> or anything like that). On the other hand, I really think that she is
> still not going to like it if I try to persuade her (I think that
> there was a previous student trying to use LaTeX, for instance, and
> she really dislikes it for some reason; I don't really know).

For anyone who's paying attention to US politics (I hope it's not
ruining your day), the lesson I think we're learning here is that
positions that are held for emotional reasons only get stronger the more
you attack them.

Knowing nothing more about your adviser than what you've written in this
thread, it sounds like it might be an emotional issue for her (as it may
be for you, and certainly is for many of us here!). Meaning, she's
likely to respond to any perceived "attack" by doubling down.

So it might be time to try out the Daoist playbook and "do without
doing". That's not helpful advice without more specifics, but my
understanding of the approach is that you create the conditions
conducive to the result you want, rather than forcing the result itself.
So that might mean providing a useful FOSS-based service to your fellow
students, or helping people understand your workflow in a non-pressuring
way, or... otherwise convincing people that it was their idea to begin
with.

Just an idea!

Eric